Genesis 3:9

These verses follow straight on from the first sin. In Genesis 3:6 the woman took the fruit of the forbidden tree, ate, and gave it to her husband, and he ate too. Their eyes were opened, they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together to cover themselves (Genesis 3:7). Until that day the garden had been a place of open fellowship between God and the man and woman he had made (Genesis 2), where “they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed” (Genesis 2:25). Now the LORD God comes, and everything else in Genesis 3, the judgment on the serpent, the woman and the man and the promise of Genesis 3:15, grows out of this visit.

“They heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden.” The verb for heard, shâmaʻ, is the ordinary word for hearing, and it often carries the sense of paying attention or obeying. The word for voice, qôwl, can mean a voice or any sound, so what they heard may have been God speaking, the rustle of his coming or the sound of his steps. hâlak, walking, is the common verb for going or walking, used in a great variety of ways. Scripture gives God a voice and a walk here, speaking in human terms so that we can grasp how near he came to the people he made, as near as when the LORD later appeared to Abraham in the plains of Mamre. He came to them in a way they could hear and know.

“The cool of the day” is rûwach hayôwm in Hebrew, literally “the wind of the day”. It most likely means the late afternoon or evening, when the heat had passed and a breeze came up. The verse speaks of the time as one they knew, which suggests a regular hour, perhaps a daily one, when God met with them. That is what makes the next words so sad.

The LORD God speaks first after the fall, and he speaks to the man who is hiding from him. Adam and Eve stay among the trees, so God takes the first step and breaks the silence. He calls, qârâʼ, a verb that means to call out to someone, to address them by name, or to proclaim. The name used, the LORD God, joins God’s covenant name with the name of the Creator, so the one calling is the faithful God who made Adam and has every right to ask him to account.

ʼâdâm, Adam, comes from a root meaning ruddy and is the word for a human being, a single person or mankind as a whole. Here it is the first man’s name, and he stands for all who come from him. God calls him personally, by name, in his fallen state, and “said unto him” makes the address direct. God is speaking to this one man and beginning a conversation that will bring his sin into the light. The question itself is a single Hebrew word, ʼay, the simple question “where?”, from which comes the sense “how?”.

Adam’s answer is honest about his feelings and silent about his sin. He heard God’s voice, he was afraid, he was naked, and he hid. He speaks of the fear and the shame and leaves the tree for God to name.

gan, garden, comes from a root meaning to fence or hedge about, so a garden is an enclosed and protected place. The place made for fellowship has become the place where Adam hides from his Maker. yârêʼ, afraid, means to fear, to dread or to be terrified. The same word can describe reverent awe, but here it goes with hiding, so it is the dread of a guilty man who expects judgment. ʻêyrôm, naked, comes from a root meaning to be bare, and it means nakedness. “Hid myself” is châbâʼ again, the verb of verse 8.

God’s next questions go from the fear and the shame to the sin that caused them. After the fig leaves and the flight of Genesis 3:7–8, and Adam’s reply in verse 10, God asks two questions. The verb for said, ʼâmar, is the everyday word for saying, telling or commanding, and the weight here lies in the questions it introduces.

“Who told thee that thou wast naked?” Adam had been naked from the day he was made. The knowledge that it was shameful came from within, from his own conscience convicted of sin, and God’s question makes Adam face where his shame came from.

“Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?” This second question goes to the heart of the matter. God recalls his own command from Genesis 2:17, and the verb tsâvâh, commanded, means to give a charge, to enjoin or to appoint. The command was clear and carried God’s authority, so Adam’s eating was a deliberate act of disobedience against a boundary he knew. The tree marked the limit of human freedom under God’s rule, and to eat from it was rebellion against that rule.

There is a bitter irony here. The serpent promised that their eyes would be opened and that they would be as gods, knowing good and evil (Genesis 3:4–5). They did gain a knowledge of good and evil, and the first thing it brought them was shame and fear. Paul traces all that followed to this act: “by one man sin entered into the world, and death by sin” (Romans 5:12).

The fig leaves show something else. Our own coverings fail before God, and Isaiah says that “all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6). Before this chapter ends, God himself clothes them: “Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them” (Genesis 3:21).

Asked whether he ate, Adam points to others before he admits it. “The man” is ʼâdâm again, the one God addressed and gave the command. “The woman”, ʼishshâh, is the word for woman, the counterpart of man. Adam names her first, and then he adds “whom thou gavest to be with me”. nâthan, gave, is the common word for giving, used with great latitude for putting, setting and making. God had given the woman to Adam as a help meet for him (Genesis 2:18), and Adam now turns that good gift into his excuse. By saying “thou gavest”, he lays the blame at God’s own door, as if the gift were the cause of his fall.

“She gave me of the tree” is true, since she did give him the fruit (Genesis 3:6), but he tells it to make himself the one who only received. “And I did eat” comes last. ʼâkal means to eat, and figuratively to devour or consume. God used the same verb when he asked his question in verse 11, and Adam has to use it in his answer. He admits the act, with no word of sorrow in the admission.

So sin has broken two bonds at once. The bond between God and man is broken, and so is the bond between the man and the woman, now that he holds her up as the cause of his sin. The same evasion comes back in the next generation, when the LORD asks Cain where his brother is and Cain answers, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” (Genesis 4:9).

The God who walked into the garden looking for Adam is the God who came in Jesus Christ looking for us. “All have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23), so Adam’s hiding is everyone’s story, and God’s answer is the same as in the garden: he takes the first step. “God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son” (John 3:16), and “God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). Jesus came “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). He is the good shepherd who calls his sheep by name and lays down his life for them (John 10:11).

Jesus is also the last Adam (1 Corinthians 15:45). Adam disobeyed and blamed others. Christ “became obedient unto death, even the death of the cross” (Philippians 2:8), and he took on himself the blame that was ours. Paul sets the two men side by side in Romans 5:18–19: “For as by one man’s disobedience many were made sinners, so by the obedience of one shall many be made righteous” (Romans 5:19).

Where Adam made a covering of fig leaves, God provides a true one. “He hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him” (2 Corinthians 5:21). Paul longed to be found in Christ, having the righteousness which is of God by faith (Philippians 3:9), and all who are baptized into Christ “have put on Christ” (Galatians 3:27). The coats of skins in Genesis 3:21 came from animals, so a death lay behind the covering God gave, and in it we see an early picture of the Lamb of God, “which taketh away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

Adam and Eve hid from God’s face, and in Christ we may “come boldly unto the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). Even in this chapter, before the man and woman leave the garden, God promises that the seed of the woman will bruise the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15), the first promise of a Redeemer.

When we sin, we still feel Adam’s pull to hide. We hide in busyness and distraction, behind our own good record, or in despair, and we reach for excuses as quickly as he did. These verses show us where that road leads, and they show us the God who keeps calling. “He that covereth his sins shall not prosper: but whoso confesseth and forsaketh them shall have mercy” (Proverbs 28:13).

Adam had the chance to say plainly what he had done, and he used it for excuses. John gives us the better way: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:8–10). David shows it in Psalm 51, where he owns his sin, grieves over it and turns to God for mercy.

God’s call still reaches us through our conscience, his word and his Spirit, and he asks in order to restore. Owning what we have done, without pointing to the person beside us or the circumstances around us, is the first step out from among the trees, and Christ has already made the covering we need.